Sermon Title: "Music and the Spirit"
Date: May 31, 2009
Ministers: Revs. Susan Bjork and Charles Ensley

Lessons:  Psalm 150; Acts 2:1-4, 12-17

Part 1- Spirit:  Rev. Susan Bjork

Happy Birthday Bay Shore Church!  Today is Pentecost, the day 50 days after Easter that Christians commemorate the gift of the Holy Spirit being bestowed upon the followers of Jesus.  

This day has commonly been seen as the “birthday” of the Christian Church because the Pentecost story (which we only read a portion of this morning) illustrates that in the time following Easter, Jesus’ disciples began to start acting in response to their experiences of Christ’s resurrection and in response to the gift of the Spirit of God in their midst. 

They began to get active proclaiming the Good News and formed communities of faith around the life and teachings of Jesus.  In other words, the Church began to take shape.

And it was the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit that made this all possible.

Spirit; from the Latin spiritus; the same root of the English words transpire, inspire, respiration, even conspiracy…spiritus, meaning breath.

Like a mighty rushing wind, the Breath of God came.  It whirled and swirled, enveloped and disrupted, tore down old conventions, and breathed new life into the community gathered together on that day of Pentecost so that they might sing a new song…it was an act of “holy respiration!”

As if it were a tongue of fire, the Spirit of God descended.  Like a flame, it cleansed, heating up hearts, awakening minds to its Divine Light.  It warmed and it flickered, a concentration of energy, ready to burst forth into the world anew igniting souls.  God’s promise of presence, fulfilled through an unexpected entrance, divinely transpired.

Spirit gifted them with speech…not like before when they were bound by their own languages, but with new words and new paths of communication. 

The language of Spirit was not unintelligible gibberish.  The language of Spirit was unity amidst diversity and transcendence of the barriers that divide.  The language of Spirit was openness to the other and openness to Spirit itself. 

Peter was first to proclaim in response to Spirit’s gift of language and others would soon follow…as they awakened to Spirit and reacted to “divine inspiration.”

Some thought they’d been drinking so early in the morning.  It’s funny to us, of course.  But perhaps they were drunk and maybe Peter missed the irony.  Perhaps they were drunk, but not on physical wine made from grapes.  Perhaps they were filled with the “new wine,” the spiritual wine, of which Jesus spoke. 

Perhaps they drank deeply of Spirit who empowered them to revel in the moment of joy…to sing a new song…to speak a new language…Spirit, who empowered them to reach out to the widow and the orphan…Spirit who empowered them to act justly, walk humbly, and love their neighbor kindly…Spirit who empowered the dreaming of big dreams, the envisioning of far-out visions, and the presence of mind to offer prophetic witness to Spirit’s work in the world.

Like a mighty rushing wind, the Breath of God came.  And still it breathes.  Spirit breathes life into creation, blows through the wilderness, and gives us breath.  How will we respond?  What new songs will we sing, what new tunes will we play with the new breath we are given?

As if it were a tongue of fire, the Spirit of God descended.  And still it burns bright.  How will we pay attention to that divine spark which warms us from within?  How will we shine light into the dark places of our lives?  How will we bring forth the energy of God’s dynamic love into the painful places in our world?

Spirit gifted them with speech.  And Spirit still speaks.  Are we listening?  Will we risk new modes of communication with those we have never spoken to before?  Will we step out of the bounds of our own limited linguistics?  Will we try out new phrases, construct new sentences, experiment with syntax, and strive to learn Spirit’s language of love?

After all, the gift of the Holy Spirit was a communal gift, a collective gift, given to all, not just to some…given to Peter and the others gathered together and given to each of us here and now.  How will we respond?

Alleluia and Amen.

 

Part II - Music:  Rev. Charles Ensley

A family that wasn’t in the practice of going to church attended the large, formal wedding of a friend.  The family’s youngest child, age three, sat perched on his father’s knee watching all the comings and goings with great interest.  There came a time in the wedding when a hymn was to be sung, and the organist launched confidently into the opening chords of the hymn in order to make a really good show.  Immediately, the little boy cringed in terror and threw his arms around his father’s neck pleading, “Daddy, make them stop the spooky music!”

That reminds me of a wedding couple I took on a tour of this sanctuary the week before last.  I asked them if they wished piano or organ music for their upcoming wedding.  There was a pause before the bride answered reflectively, “I can’t say that I recall what an organ sounds like.”

We, who attend worship here regularly, are used to hearing organs at weddings.  We’re also accustomed to the sounds of our piano, harpsichord, handbells and handchimes being played in worship.  We come expecting to hear the choir or the children sing. 

It’s been a while since I did an illustration of how much of a part music plays in our worship.  I took the worship bulletin for an average worship service and marked in red every place where music was played or sung.  Last Sunday—what we on the staff call a “normal” Sunday—there were eleven listed musical selections in worship, and that does not include unlisted “movement music” Alicia plays when the children are gathering or at other moments.

Our music staff and ministers put a lot of thought into the music we select for each worship service.  Does it fit with the theme of the day?  Will it achieve the mood we are trying to create?  Will something about it move you, the listeners or singers?  Will it make sense when you hear it just once?

But underlying our selection of the musical pieces is their very existence itself.  Somewhere, sometime, there was a person inspired to compose the music.  And another person wrote a poem, called lyrics in musical parlance.  Either one can come before the other, music or words.  Sometimes they are even written together; other times separated by years, or even centuries.

Yet of those persons who heard a tune in their head, who put pen to paper and wrote out words, there first had to come the inspiration.  That is true of all music, but especially of that which we sing and hear in the church.  I fully believe the Holy Spirit is the responsible source.  Susie mentioned that our English word “inspire” has as its root “spirit.”

Doubtless you’ve composed your share of term papers, master’s theses, or even doctoral dissertations.  They take a lot of thought and research.  Maybe you’ve even written a few poems, either as a school assignment or because you wanted to.  But my guess is that even among those of you who read music, very few of you have actually composed a musical score.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for great composers of the past—Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn—and even hymn composers of today to be inspired and able to capture all the notes floating out there and commit them to a musical score?  Tell me the Holy Spirit that inspired and ignited the first disciples fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t working within later musical composers as well.  Maybe Beethoven was filled with joy when he composed his Ode to Joy, to which 83 years later Henry van Dyke would pen the words “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee…”  Maybe Stuart Hine was thinking of God’s greatness and wonder in 1953 when he composed the tune, based on a Swedish folk melody, and wrote the words for How Great Thou Art, based on an 1885 poem by Carl Gustav Boberg. 

In Psalm 150, used as our call to worship and written in the millennium before Christ’s birth, we could see that musical instruments were widely used to offer praise to God:  trumpet, lute, harp, tambourine, strings, pipe, cymbals—half of which are being used in our worship today.  To them, we have added the gladsome voices of adults and children—both choir and congregation—in praise and glory of our Triune God:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Christina Rosetti (1830-1894), some of whose poems have provided lyrics to hymns, wrote this:

Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony

With thee, one full responsive vibrant chord;

Unto thy praise, all love and melody,

Tune me, O Lord.

May that be our prayer on this day when we give God thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and especially the Spirit’s inspiration for music.